Welcome each visitor...

Two quotes and a link. My own thoughts are just not fitting for public consumption. I've laid on the couch for nearly a full day. I'm feeling slightly more rested, and but still deeply sad and exhausted. Tomorrow morning I'll go back to work and start again. This is a season of breaking, of shattering, of wondering if wholeness will ever happen again, and do I really want it anyway? Of evaluating the high costs of various decisions. Of questions and elusive future possibilities. Of silence and oftentimes loneliness (even in the midst of crowds). Of fasting. Of thinking and praying and wondering and waiting. Of agonizing and weeping. Of opening my life to the thousand and one sorrows that surround me, and letting them change things in my heart. Of crying out to God in the desperate hope that he will hear and respond and send peace.

I'm going with my best friend to a panel discussion on genocide - in Rwanda and Darfur - in a few hours. We'll eat together first, and then listen, and once again I'm sure my heart will shatter.

So, two quotes and a link. That's all I can manage for public consumption.

Sara Miles describes a conversation soon after she'd become a Christian, with an old friend, where, as he shared the pain in his life, she recommended he pray. She writes:

"When you told me to pray," Jose would remember later, "it was incredibly earnest. You said prayer was like having this intense, profound longing that you just had to be with. That you put the longing in the hands of God, in a certain way. That it was important to be receptive to the unfulfilled, and not fill it or deny it."

I had to be receptive or go crazy - because even as I kept going to church, the questions raised by the experience only multiplied. Conversion was turning out to be quite far from the greeting-card moment promised by televangelists, when Jesus steps into your life, personally saves you, and becomes your lucky charm forever. Instead, it was socially and politically awkward, as well as profoundly confusing. I wasn't struck with any sudden conviction that I now understood the "truth." If anything, I was just crabbier, lonelier, and more destabilized.
(Sara Miles, "Take This Bread", pg. 70)

The poet Rumi writes:

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival

A joy, a depression, a meannness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for
some new delight.

I first came across that poem a few years back, as the inspiration for this story, "The Crowded House".

To be receptive to the unfulfilled spaces and not fill or deny them, and to welcome each visitor, even if they're a crowd of sorrows. This is the space I am working to occupy.

Not up to the fight today

You can tell a lot about my mental, emotional and spiritual state these days by checking out what I’m playing on my ipod at work.

Jason Upton, Steve Bell, Kendall Payne, Jacob and Lily – most of these mean I’m in a space where I’m willing and waiting to meet with Jesus, to encounter him.

U2 on the other hand, I listen to when I’m angry, when I’m afraid, when I’m frustrated, when I’m feeling the need to fight through something.

I’m listening to U2 today.

It would be an overstatement to say that I woke up angry this morning… you need to get more than three or four hours of sleep for it to qualify as “waking up”. Tossing and turning and lying awake and frustrated through most of the night hours doesn’t qualify.

I’m feeling tired, angry, fearful, frustrated. I’ve been sick for nearly two straight weeks – first a stomach bug, and now a brutal head cold. And I’m feeling just a little bit guilty because today I just don’t want to engage with the things that usually lift my spirits. I’m feeling like indulging the fear and the anger, and feeling sorry for myself… I’m feeling like wallowing.

Jesus re-hijacked my life in mid-August. It’s been a wild up and down ride ever since. So good, but so exhausting.

I’ve gone to deeper places than I ever imagined possible with Him. Beautiful places.

And today, I’m terrified of those places, of that ongoing journey. For a long time I’ve been afraid to deeply engage with the Spirit of God. I’m afraid of what I’ll find in my own soul, I think. I’m scared of losing control. I’m scared (again) of being “weird”. I’m scared of what He might ask of me. I suspect following Jesus may ultimately cost me my life.

I carry generational fears, too. Fears that compel me into slightly OCD tendencies – a need to check the lock on the door carefully before I go to bed each night among other things. To some degree a fear of men – particularly within certain situations. Odd that my mother, who passed these along, has found such freedom from them, while I still struggle deeply.

I carry fears from a series of things that happened in my life when I was twelve – fear of betrayal by friends, fear of rejection. In fact, it was a friend asking me the question “What were you like when you were twelve?” that opened the doors to this recent plunge into deeper things of Jesus.

I’ve chosen to live openly – the things I put on this blog are the deep heart things, very few things don’t make it here, or are held secretly. There are things I treasure in my heart that will never be shared, but mostly, I live with defiance – a honesty that is designed to push past the secret-keeping, fear inducing past of my life. I will give a piece of my heart to many who ask or draw it from me, and I trust them with it, but in some, secret corner, I wait for that moment of rejection and betrayal.

I want to be clear that I know so many of the spaces I’m occupying today are lies. That I know that fear is not from Christ, that He wants to combat lies. I just don’t know if I feel up to fighting that battle today. It seems easier to play dead.

So I’m sitting here, sipping tea, and listening to U2, and feeling angry, and exhausted by the battle, feeling frustrated, and unable (unwilling?) to fight.

Thy Kingdom Come

I'm curled up in my pajamas, in the chair in the corner of my bedroom. It's the chair I toss clothes on when I'm too lazy to hang them up, or my bag when when I get in from work. The all-purpose, catch all chair.

But lately, I've felt compelled to keep it clean. I've hung my clothes, and propped my bag elsewhere. The chair has been sitting there in the corner, empty and inviting me to come. To sit, to breathe, to slow down.

(Other than my laptop screen) the only light in my bedroom is from candles. My favorite incense is burning and filling the air with a spicy, smoky, beautiful scent. In the corner where I'm sitting are all of my visual reminders. A stone with the quote that inspired this blog. A railway spike. A crucifix from Mexico. Artwork that reminds me of specific words from Scripture, and encouragements to truly live. A tiny clay oil lamp that a friend brought from Nazareth. Next to the stone and the spike a candle burns - one I don't often burn - a gift from a dear friend the day I was baptized - given with a half-serious admonishment to burn it and remember that day.

And, across the room is a painting that a dear friend did as a gift to me. Square, maybe two feet by two feet. Mostly black, though rich with texture she added, and then, light, and beauty, coming out of nothingness. She titled it, "Thy Kingdom Come." I love this painting, and I deliberately hung it where I could see it when I settle into this chair, this corner of my bedroom to pray.

I didn't know where to even start today - the only words I could think of were, "Jesus, I'm tired, and it's heavy." It's been a Monday in the truest Garfield sense of the word. Cold, rainy weather, late trains this morning, cranky, tired people at the office. A friend in distress. A much needed word of truth spoken, but stinging.

I'm tired, and it's heavy.

So I'm sitting here in the candlelight, breathing incense, and staring at my barely lit painting.

Thy Kingdom Come.

Maybe that's all I really need to ask for tonight.

Thy Kingdom Come in my terrible Monday sort of day.

Thy Kingdom Come in the moments at night when I lay awake unable to sleep, knowing I'm going to pay for it in the morning.

Thy Kingdom Come in the lives of hurting friends.

Thy Kingdom Come in truth spoken gently and firmly.

Thy Kingdom Come in the Bible study I'm working to give leadership to.

Thy Kingdom Come in the life of the one for whom I had keys cut today.

Thy Kingdom Come in lunch with a friend tomorrow, and a concert tomorrow night.

Thy Kingdom Come in tiny moments of light, in tea, in hot showers, in incense, in stretching, in reading, in remembering to breathe and working to trust.

Abba, Thy Kingdom Come.

Fascinating Article

I've only read the first bit of this article - I've printed it for closer reading at home tonight. It discusses letters written by Mother Teresa that have recently been released and detail her long struggles around faith and doubt. I find it encouraging to know that such a paragon of faith - a woman who gave so much of herself in service to Christ struggled intimately with doubts.

You can check the article out here.